ugh... i can't even watch TV news entertainment. this is the left version of bill o'reilly. Please just report the story and move on, there's no need to inject sarcasm. How about doing some reporting and find out how these guys are selected and how this selection process has held up scientific advancement over the years?

You do know that Obamacare was written by Republicans, right? Not Democrats?

That said - come back and try again after a Democrat goes on record as believing that "There's no such thing as cancer, only the four humours, therefore we must destroy all chemotherapy wards and cure them with leeches." It'll probably be a while, but I'm sure that nobody here will mind the wait.

I will wait. But let me go get a lighter first for the inevitable strawman yet to come from MB.

And the chairman for the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology is 89 year old Ralph Hall. Hall is a former Texas judge who has now been in congress for 32 years. He was a democrat until the Bush administration came into power, then he switched parties, mostly because he is a long time friend of the Bush family. He was heavily involved with Jack Abramoff, indeed Abramoff made 15 calls to his office the day the CNMI scandal broke, but there were no consequences to him from this.

So the USA has a crooked dotard in charge of one of the most important committees for America's future. This will not end well.

spentmiles:As a quantum optics hobbyist, I applaud David and Serge's work. Their calculations match my own and are soft of a justification for every one of us out that that said you could in fact measure the immeasureable. I know these guys were working hard - too hard to answer letters apparently - and they deserve the accolades.

As a stay at home father of two junior college students, who are currently taking introductory physics and astronomy classes, I have to say that I'm worried about the future of our country's education programs. Paul Broun and Todd Akin are dragging us right back into the dark ages with their faith based arguments and complete ignorance. They want us to return to the Middle Ages when the church was all powerful and pedagogical development was at a standstill. Can you imagine how happy they'd be if we didn't have science programs, but instead spent vast sums on religious indoctrination and faith initiatives?

I'll have you know that at this very moment I am broadcasting signals into outer space - signals that contain precise instructions for an invading alien force -- where to hit, how to hit, and when to hit. And they are receiving these messages too. Just google random numbers, map each number to its corresponding word in the American College Dictionary, and then feed those words into Google translate. You'll see exactly what I've seen - the aliens constructed google and are using it as a communications channel to correspond with us in the know.

Bottom line - we need smart people making decisions. Smart people like me. I should do something about this.

Dana Rohrabacher may not belong on the committee for other reasons, but I wouldn't give her too much of a hassle over the dinosaur farts comment, considering that livestock farts are currently considered a contributing factor to global warming. I"m not saying that she's right, but the idea isn't as ridiculous as a lot of ideas that have come out of the Science, Space & Technology Committee members recently.

coeyagi:No, but I am sure most of them are experts in 1 or more of those things. But your "concern" is duly noted.

Please let me know which of the congressmen on the ways and means committee are experts in these fields? The chairman, Charles Rangel... let's see.... has been in politics since 1967 and before that was a soldier and a lawyer. Sounds like somebody to write a law that affects the whole country and a large chunk of the economy.

All these guys need to be cawkpunched regularly.Really. they are functionally retarded.They believe in some pretty "special" shiat.And we don't let retards vote in this country.So why do we let Republicans?

coeyagi:DonQuixote314159: FTFA:Rachel Maddow ripped Republican members of the House Science Committee on her Tuesday MSNBC show, contrasting their science-related comments to the scientists who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

They won the Nobel Prize in Physics, not the Nobel Peace Prize, dumbass article writer.

/Didn't watch the video, so I don't know if Rachel Maddow made the same mistake

She did not. I watched it last night, I am pretty sure she said Physics.

sleeper2995:Dinosaur farts ? Something tells me there is not a lot of critical thinking going on in this committee

To give Dana Rohrbacher a bit of slack, I think he used "dinosaur farts" as hyperbole and as a rhetorical device. The truth is, we do know a lot about the CO2 levels in prehistoric times. I think the high CO2 levels occurred way, way before dinosaur period, perhaps during the precambrian era. I'm not exactly sure.

The big problem is that committee seats aren't determined by credentials but rather are incentives that are offered based on interest. The people who are most tempted by a committee membership and most willing to jump through hoops to get it are the ones who sees the related field as problematic and in need of fixing.

It would be like if you had an opening on the House Budget Committee and your options are a guy who majored in finance who sees our system as generally functional (sort of a necessary evil) but could use some tweaking and an English major who thinks the way we do everything is terrible and we need to completely destroy the current tax and spending structures and replace it with their ideal system. The first guy might actually know more about what he's doing, but the second guy will crawl over broken glass and vote against their beliefs on every other issue for the party leadership if he gets that spot.

Everyone questions why they let these republicans dictate science policy but it's just a distraction keeping you from asking why politicians in general are the ones who dictate science policy.

When left to a politician, which of the scientists do you think will get a grant....the one who wants to grow a sweet stawberry or the one who wants to grow a tatesless strawberry with a long shelf life that ships well.

That committee is a parking lot for losers in Congress. It doesn't authorize legislation and it doesn't appropriate funds, so it's a dead-end backwater that nobody cares about. Don't let the fancy sounding name fool you.

Girl From The North Country:coeyagi: DonQuixote314159: FTFA:Rachel Maddow ripped Republican members of the House Science Committee on her Tuesday MSNBC show, contrasting their science-related comments to the scientists who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

They won the Nobel Prize in Physics, not the Nobel Peace Prize, dumbass article writer.

/Didn't watch the video, so I don't know if Rachel Maddow made the same mistake

She did not. I watched it last night, I am pretty sure she said Physics.

AliceBToklasLives:kregh99: Dimensio: Funbags: If there is no God, then Ron Broun swearing an oath to uphold the Constitution would be non-binding.

Checkmate, Atheists.

Are you unfamiliar with the concept of "perjury"?

Lying = giving an account contrary to the truthPerjury = giving an account contrary to the truth after swearing on a book of fairy tales that you wouldn't, so help you invisible person.

Yeah, but you can use other books besides the Bible - Muslims can swear on the Koran, atheists on, I dunno, the Constitution.

/wait, what happens if you swear on the Constitution to uphold the Constitution?

When I took the Uniformed Services Oath, I affirmed my duty to support and defend the Constitution. It's just a promise to do what I said I would do, just like people who require an invisible deity to be watching over them to insure that they do good.

drworm:ugh... i can't even watch TV news entertainment. this is the left version of bill o'reilly. Please just report the story and move on, there's no need to inject sarcasm. How about doing some reporting and find out how these guys are selected and how this selection process has held up scientific advancement over the years?

Very this. I wanted to know what sorts of decisions that panel is facing, and what past panels have made.

MugzyBrown:coeyagi: No, but I am sure most of them are experts in 1 or more of those things. But your "concern" is duly noted.

Please let me know which of the congressmen on the ways and means committee are experts in these fields? The chairman, Charles Rangel... let's see.... has been in politics since 1967 and before that was a soldier and a lawyer. Sounds like somebody to write a law that affects the whole country and a large chunk of the economy.

Fluorescent Testicle: You do know that Obamacare was written by Republicans, right? Not Democrats?

So?

There's no person or group of people in congress qualified to write a law of such a magnitute... that's why I wouldn't want any of them to attempt it.

What's your point?

The healthcare bill wasn't primarily written by politicians. The framework was developed by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, and large chunks of the PPACA were written by lobbying groups representing many interests including both doctors and the health insurance industry until it met their standards to accept that the law addressed their concerns.

The involvement of lobbyists comes with its own problems, but this wasn't just a bunch of former lawyers writing an idealized bill on a field they had only a layman's experience with.

dericwater:Anne.Uumellmahaye: That dinosaur fart thing might not be completely out of left field. When I drive past construction sites that have dug down past the sand layer I always think it smells like pee.

Dinosaur pee.

You know how dinosaur pee smells like?

If it's anything like what came out of my old iguana after he ate zucchini with mangos I'm sure it's pretty rank.

...as liberal as DKos is, for some reason they seem far more journalistic than HuffPo. In fact, they seem far more journalistic than a majority of "journalism" sites out there. And this is a site with user contributed content.

MugzyBrown:coeyagi: No, but I am sure most of them are experts in 1 or more of those things. But your "concern" is duly noted.

Please let me know which of the congressmen on the ways and means committee are experts in these fields? The chairman, Charles Rangel... let's see.... has been in politics since 1967 and before that was a soldier and a lawyer. Sounds like somebody to write a law that affects the whole country and a large chunk of the economy.

Fluorescent Testicle: You do know that Obamacare was written by Republicans, right? Not Democrats?

So?

There's no person or group of people in congress qualified to write a law of such a magnitute... that's why I wouldn't want any of them to attempt it.

What's your point?

So when I use the word "most", you counter with "lemme show you 1 person who doesn't fit that categorization because I don't understand how the use of the adjective 'most' works".

You should go to Japanese Executive Retraining to get your ribbons of shame.